Gardening Tips & Ideas: Part 2 of 2

July 25, 2014

On last week’s garden post, I shared a few tips and ideas that were used with this year’s garden. If you missed that post click here. I’m happy to report everything is doing awesome! Please excuse the color variation from photo to photo. They were captured with different cameras throughout the days of documenting the garden’s progress.

Patiently waiting for crops.

Once the plants started to grow, cages were placed around them. As you can see the tomato plant on the left has a stick in the center of it. It was growing way to big for a cage, but needed some additional support. Actually, it was an old broom stick I had in the garage that wasn’t being used. (recycling tip)

After the cages are in place keep an eye on the plants. You’ll want to make sure as it grows to keep the leaves on the outside of the cage.

The tomato plant continues to grow. As you can see in this photo the first support stick is invisible, so a second one was positioned according to what branches were the heaviest. Then I cut up a t-shirt (recycling tip) into strips to be used as a rope. You want to use a cotton t-shirt that way it’s soft against the stems. A robe may cause it to break.

Keep an eye on the straw in the garden. If the newspaper starts to show through, add another layer. The birds are having a blast stealing pieces to build their nests with. I don’t mind sharing with the condition that they stay away from the vegetables.

This has been the biggest tomato plant ever. Perhaps it’s because I opted not to place a cage around it. The photo shows another support stick, but at present time there are three sticks supporting its branches. Lots of tomatoes!

My favorite part of the garden is the recycled pallets. The leafy vegetables are doing well in them. Snipping off what I want and more comes in right away.

The collard greens have their own section in the garden. Adding the strip of straw down the center has proven successful. No weeds anywhere! And it makes a nice walkway in between the plants.